


Darkness Falls

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [20]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, MSR, Missing Scene, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 06:05:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4468187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	1. Darkness Falls

_“We have an emergency evacuation situation. Requesting quarantine facility for two, possibly three victims, with undiagnosed infection or exposure to unknown biological vector. Repeat. That’s an emergency evacuation situation. Two, possibly three victims…”_

The first thing he becomes aware of upon waking is a burning sensation in his throat and lungs. He swallows thickly, carefully, trying to remember what happened and where he is. It comes back to him in a rush, then -- the Jeep, the bugs -- and he opens his eyes only to slam them shut against the blinding white light that surrounds him.

“Scully,” he rasps.

He hears a muffled voice, male, near his right shoulder. “He’s waking up.”

Opening his eyes again, more slowly this time, he squints into the light until he can make out a figure in a white HazMat suit standing over him. “Scully,” he tries again, his voice like gravel. “Did she make it?”

The man shifts and gestures to the gurney behind him. “You’re all very lucky to be alive, Mr. Mulder.”

Mulder cranes his neck until he can see her, watches the slow rise and fall of her chest for several long moments while he waits for his heart to stop racing. He was so sure they were all going to die in that Jeep, that Scully was going to die and it would be entirely his fault. He whispered an apology to her just before he lost consciousness, an apology that’s still on his lips now, even though he hasn’t gotten her killed after all.

(Not yet, anyway.)

Another HazMat-suited man joins the first. “Agent Mulder, I’m Dr. Tanaka with the CDC. How are you feeling?”

_Like I swallowed a bunch of steel wool and almost destroyed one of the few people I actually care about._

“Glad to be alive,” he says instead. “Could do with some water, though.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find that trying to swallow  _anything_  just yet will only make your throat feel worse. I’m going to continue hydrating you intravenously for the time being, but now that you’re awake, I can increase your dose of pain medication.” He reaches past his colleague and taps a button on the machine connected to the IV in Mulder’s arm. “This should help with the discomfort.”

The effects are almost immediate, and Mulder gives another experimental swallow as the pain in his throat starts to subside. “That helps, yeah. Thanks.”

Dr. Tanaka walks to a counter across the room and picks up a clipboard. “When you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to run some tests on pulmonary function, see if there’s been any permanent damage to your system. What we learn from you might help us more effectively treat the others.”

Pain or no pain, he’s more than willing to do whatever they need him to do, if there’s a chance it will help Scully heal faster. He tries to shift himself into a sitting position, but the other CDC guy puts a hand on his shoulder.

“There’s no rush, Mr. Mulder. You’ve only just regained consciousness. Let’s take it slow.”

“I’m fine, let’s do the tests.”


	2. A Darkness Falls-Tooms Interlude

They were in quarantine for ten days.

Ranger Moore woke up a few hours after Mulder did. Scully finally woke up a few hours after that. Mulder had spent much of the day sitting beside her bed, and when her eyes eased open and she croaked his name, he was so relieved that he couldn’t help the big, goofy grin that broke over his face.

She was the worst off of the three; the damage to her lungs was significant, and she was severely anemic, so for the first few days of their quarantine, she slept more hours than not. But by day four, she began to feel better, well enough to sit and read with Mulder and Moore. They didn’t have access to a television, and none of them were up for doing a whole lot of talking, but the CDC did bring in some books and newspapers for them to read.

By day six, when talking no longer hurt so much and everyone had a bit more energy, they started setting the books aside and chatting, instead. Moore wasn’t all that much of a conversationalist, but he told the agents a little about his work, that he and his wife were expecting a baby boy in a few months. After ten or fifteen minutes of polite conversation, he would wander away to write in his notebook, and Mulder and Scully would be left alone.

Mulder was a little afraid to talk about work, about the series of events that had gotten them into this mess. If Scully never forgave him for acting on his own, for not consulting the rest of the team before letting Spinney leave with their entire supply of gasoline, she would be well within her rights. It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise to discover that she didn’t completely resent him, after all.

“I can’t believe we’ve already been here a week. I haven’t taken this much time off work since my brother got married and we all had to fly out to Hawaii for the wedding.”

“This is definitely no match for a Hawaiian vacation. Although… Do you think if we ask nicely, the boys in the bunny suits will let us roast a pig in here?”

She chuckled, a raspy, sobering sound nothing like her usual laugh. Mulder must not have been able to keep the regret and guilt from his face, because she sighed at him.

“I’m fine, Mulder. You can quit looking at me like I’m on death’s door. I knew the risks when I took the job, and I accepted them then, and I accept them now.”

“Was that in the official FBI recruitment materials? ‘May encounter prehistoric insects in the field and suffer life-threatening bodily harm as a result’?”

She snorted. “Not exactly, no. Actually, there are a lot of things I’ve encountered, working with you, that were never explicitly mentioned at the Academy.”

“I guess this is all a bit more than you signed up for when you left medicine.” He looked down, away, across the room.

“Mmm, yes and no. I’ll admit the specifics aren’t what I expected, but I think it still comes down to solving crimes and answering questions. Maybe you and I don’t always agree on the answers, but at the end of the day, I’m still doing the job I signed up for.”

When he dared to meet her eyes again, she was looking at him calmly, her expression serious without being somber. He pulled one corner of his mouth up into a half-smile and nodded.

***

One night, Mulder heard whimpering coming from the bed next to his. Looking over, he could see his partner moving her head back and forth in sleep, her arms twitching. No stranger to nightmares himself, he eased out of his own bed and sat on the edge of Scully’s, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s just a dream, Scully,” he whispered. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

She awoke with a start, eyes wild, but as she settled her gaze on Mulder’s face, she relaxed. She brought a hand up to cover the one he was still resting on her shoulder.

“Sorry to wake you.”

“You didn’t. Under ordinary, not-heavily-medicated circumstances, sleep and I aren’t generally on the best of terms.”

She squinted at the clock across the room. “Mulder, it’s two in the morning! We should get whoever’s on call to come in and give you something to help you sleep.”

“Nah.” He shook his head with a smile. “I’ll be all right. I’m used to being a little tired. I’m a lot less used to feeling like my brain’s been turned into soup, which is what happens when I take whatever sedatives they usually give me in hospitals. What about you, are you gonna be able to go back to sleep?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, but she hadn’t moved her hand from his. She took a deep breath, then sighed through her nose. “Once my heart rate returns to normal, anyway.”

He squeezed her shoulder and carefully slid his hand out from under hers. “Well, if you need to talk about it…”

“I think I’d rather not. Really, Mulder, I’ll be fine. You should try to get some sleep.”

He nodded, then returned to his own bed. He closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable, listening to Moore lightly snoring across the room, the hum of the ventilation system, an air compressor clicking on in the adjoining lab. At home, he was accustomed to crashing on the couch, the TV and the traffic outside providing constant, low-level background noise. The nights they’d spent in quarantine had been a lot quieter than he was used to.

A whisper broke across the quiet. “Hey Mulder?”

“Yeah, Scully?”

“Thanks.”

***

At long last, once the CDC was content that no one was harboring any eggs or larvae from the bugs, either externally or internally, they were deemed free to go.

Ranger Moore shook Scully’s hand, then Mulder’s. “Let’s never do this again, all right?”

“If we ever have to investigate anything in your neck of the woods again, we’ll make sure to let you know ahead of time, so you can take an auspiciously-timed vacation,” Mulder promised.

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Moore said, smiling, before turning and heading out to where his wife was waiting for him in the hall.

A CDC official drove Mulder and Scully to the tiny state airport nearby, where the Forest Service maintained a base of operations for wildfire fighting. One of the rangers there gave them a lift to Seattle, and they waited there until they could catch a red-eye back to DC. The day of travel was the most activity they’d had since their encounter with the bugs, and both of them were too tired to say much as they sat for several hours, waiting at their gate.

Mulder had never had any trouble sleeping on airplanes, but as far as he knew, Scully had never fallen asleep during any of the flights they took for work. She told him once that she couldn’t understand how anybody could feel comfortable enough to take a nap amid a bunch of strangers like that. (“I mean, you never know who’s going to be sitting next to you, and you’re just going to trust them when you’re at your most vulnerable?” she’d said.)

Between the strain of their ordeal and the lateness of the hour, trying to stay awake on this flight would be a miserable endeavor, as far as Mulder was concerned. He could already see her fighting with her exhaustion, and they weren’t even on the plane yet.

When they were finally in line to board, he looked down at his boarding pass, then over at Scully’s. He held his pass out to her.

“Here, trade me.”

She blinked at him. “What for?”

“They gave me the window seat.”

“I don’t… Mulder, you hate the middle. And it’s pitch black outside. There’s nothing to see out the window anyway.”

“Maybe not, but this way you won’t have to sit next to any strangers.”

She looked at him for a moment, brow furrowed in confusion, but took his proffered boarding pass and handed him her own without another word. As  they at last settled into their seats, Mulder knew he was going to pass out before they were even off the ground.

Just before he fell asleep, he felt Scully’s head come to rest on his shoulder, and Mulder smiled.


End file.
